June 27, 2012

A Pilgrim at Euro 2012

Cesare Prandelli

Even though I love this game, I’m not a big soccer fan, except for international tournaments such as the Champions League, the European Championships, and the World Cup. That’s why I’m watching—and enjoying—Euro 2012, and not just because Italy are doing very well, though that helps, of course—by the way, hey German friends, how do you feel about next Thursday?

Yet that’s not what I want to talk about right now, not strictly speaking, at least. In fact, I want to talk about pilgrimages… Well, in reality the (two) pilgrimages in question are those made by Italy coach Cesare Prandelli and his staff during the Euro 2012 soccer championships. The first time, after beating Ireland and reaching the Euro quarter-finals, they went to a Camaldolese monastery in the middle of the night (a 13-mile walk):

The Camaldolese monks - whose origins are in Italy but who run a monastery outside Krakow - met the squad before the tournament and the team staff promised to make a pilgrimage to the monastery if they got out of Group C.
No one expected coach Prandelli, his backroom team and federation vice president and former midfielder Demetrio Albertini to take the walk at 3am local time, shortly after arriving back in Krakow from beating the Irish 2-0 in Poznan.
The federation said in a statement that the group, who first 'had to deal with the jokes of the players... who went off to bed', took three-and-a-half hours to complete the walk and returned to the team base at 7am - by car. [Mail Online]

The second time, after beating England and reaching the semifinals, they went to a Franciscan convent near Wieliczka (a 7-mile nocturnal walk):

Italy's attacking spirit on the field is proving hard to beat. Coach Cesare Prandelli's religious commitment is also holding strong.
For the second time at the European Championship, Prandelli and his entire coaching staff celebrated a victory with a nocturnal pilgrimage to a monastery near the squad's base outside Krakow.
After the win over Ireland last week, the 14-member group embarked on a 21-kilometer (13-mile) trek at 3 a.m. to a Camaldolese monastery. This time they got a later start and walked only 11 kilometers (7 miles) to a closer monastery.
The reason for the delay and the shorter trip early Monday was because Italy required extra time and a penalty shootout to beat England in the quarterfinals on Sunday. Also, anti-doping authorities held up forward Mario Balotelli for an hour, delaying the flight back from Kiev, Ukraine.
The team plane touched down in Krakow at about 4 a.m. Then once the squad reached the team hotel in Wieliczka, the players went to bed and the staff — including security members and other officials — embarked on their pilgrimage. [SFGate]

Nice story, isn’t it? In these times of doubt and skepticism, here is a man of faith. Of true and simple faith. Here is a man who lost his wife—after a long and painful illness—in the middle of a season in 2007, but who did not lost his “center.” Here is how he described—in an interview he gave to Jesus, an Italian Catholic magazine, and eventually republished in la Repubblica newspaper—his own faith experience: “I grew up in a believing family. Then, when they reach adolescence, many make different choices. Instead, I kept on believing and practicing. I live my spirituality by attending Mass, but not only by that.” Asked to explain what he meant by that “not only,” he answered: “Well, I’m sorry but I don’t like very much to talk about what I do, they are very private things, talking about them makes me feel ill at ease…, I don’t want to put them on display, nor do I want people to think that I want to put them on display, because I don’t have to sell anything to anyone—I just think people have to do what they feel they have to do…”

Well, what to say? Not that I think that prayers and pilgrimages may grant you victory over your enemies, er, I mean opponents—that would be a bit too easy, wouldn’t it? And yet, it is written: “If God with us who can be against us?” So if I were you, my German (and Portuguese, and Spanish) friends, I’d be very careful from now on—and don’t say I hadn’t told you so! But that being said, may the best team win!

3 comments:

Where there's strong faith, one can certainly go a long way, and complimenti a l'Italia! Germany missed a few chances but they finally got a deserved penalty. The two Italian goals were superb, veritable hammer bows! Even the German goal keeper applauded the second one.In what's left of the meantime, maybe the Spainish team should take time off to go to Compostelle..

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The name of this blog indicates a place where people seek their bearings, but this is not a site where they can actually find them—everyone is, or should be, his own wind rose.
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I have been a High School teacher of History and Italian almost all my working life. Now that I am retired, I can finally spend more time doing what I love most: writing.
In my Twitter profile I describe myself as “European by birth, American by philosophy,” which after all is quite an accurate description. Perhaps it also supports the adage that brevity is the soul of wit.
I live in the Venice area with my wife, my daughter, and my dog, a Golden Retriever that swims like a fish and is crazy about tennis balls.
I am currently a contributor/columnist at Atlantico.
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«Proclaim LIBERTY throughout all the Land unto all the Inhabitants thereof Lev. XXV, X
By Order of the Assembly of the Province of Pensylvania for the State House in Philada»
1752

«If I had a bell
I'd ring it in the morning
I'd ring it in the evening ...
all over this land,
I'd ring out danger
I'd ring out a warning
I'd ring out love between all of my brothers and my sisters
All over this land.
...
It's a bell of freedom»Lee Hays and Pete Seeger
["If I Had a Hammer"]

"Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones;
So let it be with Caesar. The noble Brutus
Hath told you Caesar was ambitious:
If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievously hath Caesar answer'd it.
Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest--
For Brutus is an honourable man;
So are they all, all honourable men--
Come I to speak in Caesar's funeral.
He was my friend, faithful and just to me:
But Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man.
He hath brought many captives home to Rome
Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill:
Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?
When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept:
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff:
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man.
You all did see that on the Lupercal
I thrice presented him a kingly crown,
Which he did thrice refuse: was this ambition?
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And, sure, he is an honourable man.
I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke,
But here I am to speak what I do know.
You all did love him once, not without cause:
What cause withholds you then, to mourn for him?
O judgment! thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason. Bear with me;
My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar,
And I must pause till it come back to me. (...)"